M.N.: Is there a connection between a very strange death of the Facebook CEO husband in Mexico gym in May 2015 and the subsequent, a year later, in a summer of 2016, placement of the Russian pre-election ads? Are these the links of the same chain? Was he somehow a potential obstacle to these plans? Was something else there? Was this death investigated sufficiently by the FBI?

May 5, 2015 – Silicon Valley technology executive David Goldberg — husband of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg — died after collapsing in a gym while on vacation in Mexico, a source close to the family and officials said Monday. Goldberg, the 47-year-old chief executive of …

The sudden death of a loved one can be devastating for anyone. But in 2015, when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg lost her husband — entrepreneur and the widely loved “soul” of Silicon Valley, Dave Goldberg — she also had to grapple with the public nature of her grief.

Two years later, Sandberg has co-written a book about that process, “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy,” with her friend, psychologist Adam Grant. On the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, she talked about the mistakes we often make when people we know are in mourning — mistakes that Sandberg herself was guilty of in the past.

“Before I lost Dave, if someone was going through something hard, I would say, ‘How much time off do you want? Do you want those projects taken off you?’” Sandberg recalled. “But that’s it. I wouldn’t say anything else because I thought I was putting pressure on them.”

When co-workers said things like that to Sandberg, she said it “trashed my self-confidence” because it reinforced a feeling of impotence. She credited CEO Mark Zuckerberg with finding the right things to say instead.

“What Mark did was, he said, ‘Do you want time off?’” Sandberg said. “But then he said, ‘I thought you made a good point in that meeting,’ or when I fell asleep in a meeting, ‘Oh, everyone does that.’ Everyone doesn’t do that. I made a mistake, he’s like, ‘Oh, you would have made that mistake before.’ That was really reassuring. He kept telling me I was adding value.”

In the immediate aftermath of Goldberg’s death, Sandberg said she also got help from Facebook users, whom she didn’t know. As an act of therapeutic writing, she typed up a journal entry as a “Fakebook” post, which she never intended to share.

“I woke up the next morning,” she said. “There are so many bad moments in this. That was one of the bad ones, really terrible. I felt so awful. I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to post this because things aren’t going to get worse. They might get better.’”

“It actually helped so much,” she added. “It did not take away the grief, but it took away a bunch of the isolation. A friend from work said she had been driving by my house almost every day and had never come in. She was scared to. She started coming in, and I needed her. Strangers posted, ‘I’ve lost this person. I’ve lost a twin. I lost a baby. I lost a husband.’ Rather than feel so isolated, I felt connected to all of these people who were experiencing loss, and breaking the isolation really helped.”

The journal entries that poured out of Sandberg as she continued to grieve formed the foundation of her half of “Option B.” She acknowledged that, even though social media is not perfect, it has created a forum for emotional honesty around a large number of topics, which may feel taboo in face-to-face relationships.

“We share in some ways, but we don’t share in others,” Sandberg said. “It’s not just death that ushers in this huge elephant that’s following behind us, trampling over our relationships. You want to silence a room? Tell someone you have cancer. Your father just went to prison. Your mother just lost her job. You just lost your job. You were raped.”

“These things happen to people every day,” she added. “It’s not that everyone wants to share everything at all times, but we really leave people alone when we need them the most.”

Another connection has emerged between Donald Trump and Felix Sater, the Russian emigre and ex-con who’s become a key figure in widening investigations into ties between Trump associates and Russian figures.

_______________________________

Sandberg’s husband of 11 years, Dave Goldberg, died at age 47 in May last year in a hotel gym in Mexico. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur was found lying near a treadmill, and was at first believed to have suffered head trauma, but later found to have passed away from heart-related causes.

FACEBOOK chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is dating again after her husband’s death. The New York Post has learned she’s spending time with Activision video games multi-billionaire Bobby Kotick.

The couple appeared in public together at a few Oscar events in Los Angeles over the weekend — at another dinner, and also at the Vanity Fair Oscar party.

Like … Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, has a new love interest. Picture: GettySource:Supplied

Friends said that while Lean In author Sandberg and Kotick have known each other for years, their romance is new.

One source told The New York Post, “Sheryl and Bobby have known each other for many years, through attending events like the Allen & Co. conference, but have only been dating for a few weeks. Things are very new.”

The source added of Sandberg, “Everyone is happy for her, because she deserves to be happy, and Bobby is great.”

A second source said Sandberg, 46, and Kotick, 53, were “close friends” and, “They’ve recently been spending more time together.”

Tragic … Sheryl Sandberg has spoken about the pain she felt at losing her husband David Goldberg so young. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied

Sandberg’s husband of 11 years, Dave Goldberg, died at age 47 in May last year in a hotel gym in Mexico. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur was found lying near a treadmill, and was at first believed to have suffered head trauma, but later found to have passed away from heart-related causes.

Sandberg spoke movingly about losing her husband in Facebook posts and remembered him as “the love of my life” at his memorial.

Huge loss … David Goldberg and Sheryl Sandberg were married for 11 years. Picture: SuppliedSource:Facebook

Divorced Kotick, the president and CEO of Activision Blizzard, has been dubbed “king of the gamers” and, according to the Financial Times, “has a knack for minting blockbuster franchises that makes his friends in Hollywood jealous,” including Call of Duty, Skylanders, World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero.